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Quote-a-palooza

“We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.” –George Washington

“Obama … talks less and less about bipartisanship, his calling card during his earlier messianic stage. He does not need to. [Obama now has] large Democratic majorities in both houses. And unlike Clinton in 1992, Obama is no centrist.” –Charles Krauthammer

“‘E Pluribus Unum’ is no longer our national motto. These three words are: ‘Do For Me.’ As in: What will the government do for me?” –Michelle Malkin

“Politicians have immense power to do harm to the economy. But they have very little power to do good.” –Walter Williams

“Most change in America doesn’t come from politicians. It comes from people inventing things and creating. The telephone, the telegraph, the computer, all those things didn’t come from government. Our world is going to get better and better, as long as we keep the politicians from screwing it up.” –David Boaz

“Conservatism always has been and always will be a force to reckon with because it most closely approximates the reality of the human condition, based, as it is, on the cumulative judgment and experience of a people. It is the heir, not the apostate, to the accumulated wisdom, morality and faith of the people. … Our challenge is not to retreat to the comfort of self-congratulatory exile but to sweat and bleed — and be victorious — in the arena of public opinion.” –Tony Blankley

“Since our last meeting we have been through a disastrous election. It is easy for us to be discouraged, as pundits hail that election as a repudiation of our philosophy and even as a mandate of some kind or other. … Bitter as it is to accept the results of the November election, we should have reason for some optimism. …[I]t is possible we have been persuasive to a greater degree than we had ever realized. Few, if any, Democratic Party candidates in the last election ran as liberals. Listening to them I had the eerie feeling we were hearing reruns of [Barry] Goldwater speeches. I even thought I heard a few of my own.” –Ronald Reagan

“Perhaps the biggest mystery of all is why anyone would want more money and more power in the hands of the federal government, which is really the basis of Obama’s campaign.” –Burt Prelutsky

“Barack Obama’s staff pleaded for get-out-the-vote volunteers in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. The memo said not to come if they’re expecting a vacation, they should only come if they want to work. Look, if they wanted to work they wouldn’t be Democrats.” –Argus Hamilton

“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.” –Samuel Adams

“The choice this year at the top of the ballot is crucial. Don’t listen to the cynical pundits who tell you this election isn’t about the issues. Oh, yes, it is. In fact, it’s about more than the issues: It’s about the direction this country’s going to take over the next 4 years and beyond. It’s about the kind of economy we want, the kind of defense we want, the kind of values we want. The choice is yours. But, yes, my fellow Americans, there is a choice, a very, very important choice.” –Ronald Reagan

“I happen to know the person who found [the 2001 Obama redistribute the wealth audio]. It is an individual person, with no more resources than a desire to know everything that he or she can about who might be the next president of the United States and the most powerful man in the world. I know that this person does not have teams of highly paid professionals, does not work out of a corner office in a skyscraper in New York, does not have access to all of the subtle and hidden conduits of information … who possesses no network television stations, owns no satellite time, does not receive billions in advertising dollars, and has a staff of exactly one. I do not blame Barack Obama for believing in wealth distribution. That’s his right as an American. I do blame him for lying about what he believes. But his entire life has been applying for the next job at the expense of the current one. He’s at the end of the line now. I do, however, blame the press for allowing an individual citizen to do the work that they employ standing armies of so-called professionals for. I know they are capable of this kind of investigative journalism: It only took them a day or two to damage Sarah Palin with wild accusations about her baby’s paternity and less time than that to destroy a man who happened to be playing ball when the Messiah decided to roll up looking for a few more votes on the way to the inevitable coronation. We no longer have an independent, fair, investigative press. That is abundantly clear to everyone — even the press. It is just another of the facts that they refuse to report, because it does not suit them.” –columnist Bill Whittle

“It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. But it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest of errors, by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise.” —Alexander Hamilton

“The power to tax is the power to destroy.” —Chief Justice John Marshall

“Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.” —Calvin Coolidge

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.” —H. L. Mencken

“The United States of America—five percent of the world’s population—leads the world economically, militarily, scientifically, and culturally—and by a spectacular margin. Any one of these achievements, taken alone, would be cause for enormous pride. To dominate as we do in all four arenas has no historical precedent. That we have achieved so much in so many areas is due—due entirely—to the structure of our society as outlined in the Constitution of the United States.” —Bill Whittle

“Those who are receptive to Senator Barack Obama’s plan to increase taxes on ‘the rich’ seem not to understand that the issue is the nation’s loss of wealth. Today, wealth can leave the country when heavy taxes threaten it—instantly, in an age of electronic financial transfers—and create jobs and economic growth overseas, instead of at home.” —Thomas Sowell

“Obama says the Constitution charters ‘negative liberties.’ He wants government to do things to people, and he’s mad that the ‘flawed’ Constitution limits its role in our lives. He doesn’t like the idea of liberty, and wants to change it!” —Rush Limbaugh

Jay Leno: Just one week left to go until the election. To give you an idea of how long this whole thing has been going on, when John McCain started, he was just 47 years old. … Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama. This is bad news for John McCain, because at his age, he has enough colon problems. … Pundits say Colin Powell is the biggest political figure to endorse Barack Obama since Bill and Hillary. And the only one of those three who will actually vote for him. … After his big speech in North Carolina [Monday], Senator Joe Biden said he was experiencing a sore throat and lost his voice. Boy, the good news doesn’t stop for Barack Obama. Just one lucky break after another. … And Ralph Nader, God bless him, still out there campaigning. Ralph Nader said today he has set a record for the most campaign speeches given in one day. He gave 21 speeches in one day. Of course, we have to take his word for it, because there are no witnesses.

“Well, there’s something known as American conservatism, though it does not even call itself that. It’s been calling itself ‘voting Republican’ or ‘not liking the New Deal.’ But it is a very American approach to life, and it has to do with knowing that the government is not your master, that America is good, that freedom is good and must be defended, and communism is very, very bad.” —William F. Buckley Jr

“The most dangerous myth is the demagoguery that business can be made to pay a larger share, thus relieving the individual. Politicians preaching this are either deliberately dishonest, or economically illiterate, and either one should scare us. Business doesn’t pay taxes, and who better than business to make this message known? Only people pay taxes, and people pay as consumers every tax that is assessed against a business. Begin with the food and fiber raised in the farm, to the ore drilled in a mine, to the oil and gas from out of the ground, whatever it may be—through the processing, through the manufacturing, on out to the retailer’s license. If the tax cannot be included in the price of the product, no one along that line can stay in business.” —Ronald Reagan

“These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was… the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was… the Republican Party. Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout! What? It’s not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame? Now let’s follow the money… right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae. And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate’s campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing. If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was. But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an ‘adviser’ to the Obama campaign—because that campaign had sought his advice—you actually let Obama’s people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn’t listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign. You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican. If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.” —Orson Scott Card

“A little noticed provision in the $700 billion Paulson plan requires Uncle Sam to embrace a sort of mark-to-market accounting for the bank investments Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will be making with taxpayer funds. Federal budgeteers will have to regularly estimate the change in value of the taxpayers’ stakes and count the paper gain or loss in the annual deficit estimates. If the assets perform well, the next president will have more money to spend without enlarging the deficit. If they perform badly, just the opposite. With expectations that the deficit could be headed toward a psychologically shocking $1 trillion in the next year or so, a strong rally in bank stocks might even be the difference between a flood and a trickle of visible red ink. Then again, if the goal is truth-in-accounting, it would be nice to see some mark-to-market on the liability side too, including Social Security and Medicare. Right now, unlike a private business, the government is not obliged to record any charge in the annual budget to cover the unfunded future obligations of these programs.” —James Freeman

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin

“[W]e must choose from among our guardians those men who, upon examination, seem most of all to believe throughout their lives that they must eagerly pursue what is advantageous to the city and be wholly unwilling to do the opposite.” —Socrates

“People who put faith in government to solve national or even individual problems are headed for deep disappointment, if it hasn’t already arrived. Still, that doesn’t stop politicians from attempting to sell political snake oil to the gullible. No one ever lost money betting on the ignorance of the uninformed masses.” —Cal Thomas

“[B]y ‘redistributing wealth,’ as Obama wants the government to do, he’s actually reducing overall wealth in the economy by taking away capital from those who can invest it efficiently in direct job creation. And the real irony is that if Obama is elected and succeeds in raising taxes on the top 5 percent, he’s likely to collect less tax, not more, if history is a guide.” —Linda Chavez

“It was the Republican Party that demolished the shining city on the hill my father built. It was the Republican Party that was 100 percent responsible for the end of the Reagan Revolution…[T]he Republican Party abandoned the trail leading to that shining city on the hill to become itself a quasi-Left-wing organization which looks at the Democrats’ welfare programs and says ‘me too’.” —Michael Reagan

“In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate—look to his character.” —Noah Webster

“The power to determine the quantity of money… is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power.” —Milton Friedman

“What sets conservatives—and by extension the GOP—apart is that we have always encouraged vigorous debate and the civil discourse necessary for the continuation of this American experiment. It is the foundation of our republic and the catalyst to our best ideas. But we succeed in our intellectual pursuits only because they stand firmly on the solid rock of our morality, our spirituality and our admission of and submission to the God that grants our souls the right to breathe. The sinking sand of liberal dogma will never be a suitable substitute.” —Doug Patton

“The left subscribes to the French Revolution, whose guiding principles were ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.’ The right subscribes to the American formula, ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.’ The French/European notion of equality is not mentioned. The right rejects the French Revolution and does not hold Western Europe as a model. The left does. That alone makes right and left irreconcilable. The left envisions an egalitarian society. The right does not. The left values equality above other values because it yearns for an America in which all people have similar amounts of material possessions… The right values equality in opportunity and strongly believes that all people are created equal, but the right values liberty, a man-woman based family and other values above equality.” —Dennis Prager

“Consider the magnitude of these problems or the sheer, dumb size of the institutions. Another phrase of financial usage familiar everywhere now is ‘too big to fail.’ But if something is too big to fail, isn’t it… too big? Look in any direction and what you see are institutions that are Too Big. Too big to fully understand, and thus too big to manage efficiently. Faced with Godzilla-sized problems, logic flees: If they’re too big to fail, the solution is… make them bigger! The big, fat government we know about, with its $2.942 trillion annual outlays. The problem of unmanageable public bigness is also seen in state legislatures in a condition of permanent nonperformance, as in New York, California or Michigan. We become numb to these outsized and failing public institutions, which grind in circles while the pols purport concern about massive, forward-crawling monoliths like Medicare, Social Security or public pension debt. By contrast, the starkness and hourly reporting of the financial crisis has made the dilemma of size impossible to duck.” —Daniel Henninger

“The government is seeking to buy up shares in healthy, well-run small businesses all across America so it can get those businesses to behave as the government wants them to behave… But isn’t that how we go into this mess—with the government trying to get banks to make more loans? Just as one lie leads to another, imprudent government intervention in the free market leads to further imprudent government intervention in the free market. Each step of the way, we are told we have no choice but to do what the government wants us to do. The original transgression that led us to the current crisis was committed by elected officials in Washington who wanted to buy additional incumbency insurance for themselves by saying to voters: We will help you buy a house. They worked to accomplish this through legislation (such as the Community Reinvestment Act) that pressured banks to make riskier loans and through tax-exempt government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which started buying up riskier loans (so the original lenders did not have to carry the risk) and wrapping them into mortgage-backed securities (which mixed bad loans with good loans)… So we have gone from government pressuring banks to make riskier mortgages, to government-sponsored enterprises buying riskier loans from banks to facilitate even more risky lending, to government buying stakes in the banks themselves… What will be the next unprecedented measure government officials never thought would be necessary?” —Terence Jeffrey

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” —Thomas Jefferson

“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” —Milton Friedman

“Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others.” —Ayn Rand

“Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.” —Ludwig von Mises

“The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else.” —Frederic Bastiat

“How odd that all those boring lessons from our grandparents turn out to be true in the globalized, hip 21st century: Save your money. Don’t borrow what you can’t pay back. Look first at a man’s character, not his degrees. And if a promised return on an investment seems too good to be true, it probably is.” —Victor Davis Hanson

“Mr. Obama’s leadership during the [financial] crisis has consisted of standing out of the way and mouthing platitudes about the failings of the past eight years of Bush economics.” —Rich Lowry

“[Ronald] Reagan moved the country to the right. Reagan didn’t get Democrat votes by telling Democrats they’re going to be comfortable as Democrats in the Republican Party because we’re going to deemphasize conservatism. Reagan made several million Democrats like conservatism.” —Rush Limbaugh

“Logic has little to do with politics, especially in an election year, when winning tends to become the only goal. In the mounting urgency of a campaign, who’s got time or energy to waste making sense?” —Paul Greenberg

“The president went on to say: ‘Here’s what the American people need to know: that the United States government is acting; we will continue to act to resolve this crisis and restore stability to our markets.’ Which was Bush’s way of saying: ‘Hi, I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’ Run for the hills!” —Chuck Muth

“A town in upstate New York is being accused of being biased ‘cause they sent out absentee ballots that say ‘Barack Osama.’ Today they apologized and printed new ballots that say ‘Barack Hussein Osama’.” —Conan O’Brien

Jay Leno: The last debate will be [Wednesday] night. It’s being sponsored by Anheuser-Bush. I guess the last two debates were so boring, people need to get good and liquored up. … But the big story continues to be the economy. How many people remember when we had an economy? They said on the news today that the stock market is on a wild roller-coaster ride. Really? Does it feel like a roller coaster? Doesn’t it feel more like that stupid free-fall ride where you drop 500 feet and you vomit all over the place? … Former President Jimmy Carter blasted President Bush, blaming the financial crisis on him. Carter called this the worst financial crisis since the Carter administration. … The average price of a gallon of gas has had its biggest drop ever this week also. It’s now down to $3.30 a gallon. Remember $3.30 a gallon? That’s the price you used to get outraged about a year ago. … General Motors fell to its lowest level since 1950, not a good sign. In fact, in terms of carmakers, General Motors is now third behind Tonka and Hot Wheels.

“We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.” —George Washington

“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.” —Ronald Reagan

“What’s the difference between the right to free speech—which is enshrined in the Constitution—versus the ‘right’ to health care, which is not? Well, back in the day, we would simply say that a right has legal authority—it’s in the Constitution and therefore it’s a not just a right, it’s a birthright. So why shouldn’t we amend the Constitution to include the rights to health care, food, housing, education—all the rest? What’s the difference between the rights we have and the ‘rights’ Obama wants to give us? Simply this: Constitutional rights protect us from things: intimidation, illegal search and seizure, self-incrimination, and so on. The revolutionary idea of our Founding Fathers was that people had a God-given right to live as they saw fit. Our constitutional rights protect us from the power of government. But these new so-called ‘rights’ are about the government—who the Founders saw as the enemy—giving us things: food, health care, education… And when we have a right to be given stuff that previously we had to work for, then there is no reason—none—to go and work for them. The goody bag has no bottom, except bankruptcy and ruin.” —Bill Whittle

“I would appeal to… all Americans to acknowledge that the preservation of our liberties ultimately depends on the enormous dedication and self-sacrifice of our military men and women. I am very concerned about whether our professional class, buffed all shiny and bright by the elite universities, will ever have the will or stamina to defend this nation in a major crisis. As I’ve predicted for years, we’re heading down a path similar to that of the Roman empire—with a sophisticated, self-absorbed upper class enjoying a comfortable lifestyle whose security is maintained by a career military (increasingly foreign or mercenary as Rome declined). Soldiers must do or die by the good judgment or shallow caprice of a nation’s leaders, who are the ones who bear all moral responsibility in this matter.” —Camille Paglia

“Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self-definition—do you really know who he is and what he believes?” —Charles Krauthammer

“Obama could have allied himself with all sorts of other people. But, time and again, he allied himself with people who openly expressed their hatred of America. No amount of flags on his campaign platforms this election year can change that.” —Thomas Sowell

“Our opponent… is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect—imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country. This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America. We see America as a force of good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism.” —Sarah Palin

“Lots of other places—from Britain to Australia—took a hit in 1929 but, alas, they lacked an FDR to keep it going till the end of the Thirties. That’s why in other countries they refer to it as ‘the Depression,’ but only in the U.S. is it ‘Great’.” —Mark Steyn

“Votes are collared under democracy not by talking sense but by talking nonsense.” —H. L. Mencken

“Probably the most distinctive characteristic of the successful politician is selective cowardice.” —Richard Harris

“The short memories of the American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.” —Will Rogers

“Anybody that wants the Presidency so much that he’ll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.” —David Broder

“What do Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden have in common? They both have friends who bombed the Pentagon.” —Rush Limbaugh

“[Joe] Biden was glib and fluent and in command of the facts—if by ‘in command of the facts’ you mean ‘talks complete blithering balderdash and hogwash.”’ —Mark Steyn

Jay Leno: The [second presidential] debate took place in Nashville, Tennessee, which is perfect—the economy right now is kind of like a bad country song: “I lost my girl; I lost my house…” … The debate was held in “town-hall” style, which means instead of ignoring the moderator’s questions, the candidates could ignore the voters directly.

“Speak seldom, but to important subjects, except such as particularly relate to your constituents, and, in the former case, make yourself perfectly master of the subject.” —George Washington

“The [Wall Street] crisis came partly because so many households decided that it would be jolly fun to budget the way government does, hitching outlays to appetites. Beneath Americans’ perfunctory disapproval of government deficits lurks an inconvenient truth: They enjoy deficits, by which they are charged less than a dollar for a dollar’s worth of government. Conservatives participate in this, even though deficits fuel government’s growth by obscuring its cost. The people can emulate the government because credit has been democratized. Democratization of everything is supposedly an unquestionable good, but a blizzard of credit cards (1.5 billion of them, nine per cardholder), subsidized loans and cheap money has separated the pleasure of purchasing from the pain of paying. Furthermore, the entitlement mentality fostered by the welfare state includes a felt entitlement to a standard of living untethered from savings. Populism flatters the people, contrasting their virtue with the alleged vices of some minority…[T]oday, the villain is ‘Wall Street greed,’ which is contrasted with the supposed sobriety of ‘Main Street.’ When people on Main Street misbehave by, say, buying houses for more than they can afford to pay, they blame the wily knaves who made them do it.” —George Will

“A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?” —Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned, ‘The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.’ The freedom of individuals from compulsion or coercion never was, and is not now, the normal state of human affairs. The normal state for the ordinary person is tyranny, arbitrary control and abuse mainly by their own government. While imperfect in its execution, the founders of our nation sought to make an exception to this ugly part of mankind’s history. Unfortunately, at the urging of the American people, we are unwittingly in the process of returning to mankind’s normal state of affairs. Americans demand that Congress spend trillions of dollars on farm subsidies, business bailouts, education subsidies, Social Security, Medicare and prescription drugs and other elements of a welfare state. The problem is that Congress produces nothing. Whatever Congress wishes to give, it has to first take other people’s money. Thus, at the root of the welfare state is the immorality of intimidation, threats and coercion backed up with the threat of violence by the agents of the U.S. Congress. In order for Congress to do what some Americans deem as good, it must first do evil. It must do that which if done privately would mean a jail sentence; namely, take the property of one American to give to another… There is no question that if one were to ask whether we Americans are moving towards more liberty or more government control over our lives, the answer would unambiguously be the latter—more government control over our lives.” —Walter Williams

“Freedom is something that cannot be passed on in the blood stream, or genetically. And it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it, or it’s gone and gone for a long, long time. Already, many of us, particularly those in business and industry, there are too many who have switched rather than fight. And it’s time that particularly, some of our corporations learned, that when you get in bed with government, you’re going to get more than a good night’s sleep.” —Ronald Reagan

“The financial services sector is over-leveraged and too large. Winding this down will, indeed, impose painful costs. Congress is seeking to explicitly transfer these costs to taxpayers, who will underwrite a new government plan devised to correct the old government plans. Taxpayers are being called upon to make a significant sacrifice, with little evidence to suggest that the troubled markets will be settled. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the latest intervention will delay the required adjustments in the financial services sector. The $700 billion intervention is just the largest, latest in a series of failed bailouts with no guarantee that the desired outcome will even be achieved. As a Public Choice professor, I used to begin class each semester with Armey’s Axiom number one: ‘The market is rational and the government is dumb.’ Those quick to call for more regulation forget the power of markets, and refuse to acknowledge government culpability in the current mess. Time and again, governments the world over have attempted to outsmart the market and the current legislation is no exception. And time after time, markets respond, toppling the best-laid government plans as they move to correctly price the underlying assets in exchange.” —former House Republican Leader Dick Armey

“Liberalism, as an experiment against common sense, undermines every institution it touches, including financial ones. In the age of political correctness, the conservatism of the banking industry was bound to give way to mindless multiculturalism and Great Society babble. Tried-and-true lending principles were deemed illiberal and imprudent loans became a form of ‘progress.’ Whatever the area that falls under it—whether it is banking or education—liberalism’s regulatory regime consists of forcing people to adopt ideological goals which defy rationality: banks are told not to insist on such outmoded tests as good credit; schools are told not to insist on good test scores for admission. High standards across the culture have eroded under liberalism. Why not in banking too? Indeed, given the choice between economic decline and political correctness, liberals always choose the former. To preserve the kangaroo rat, they will cut jobs. To advance faddish global warming theory, they will undercut whole industries. Instead of bemoaning economic decline, they normally interpret it as a measure of enlightenment: that some worthy ideological goal, far more important than money, is slowing business down.” —George Neumayr

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Quote-a-palooza

“We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.” –George Washington

“Obama … talks less and less about bipartisanship, his calling card during his earlier messianic stage. He does not need to. [Obama now has] large Democratic majorities in both houses. And unlike Clinton in 1992, Obama is no centrist.” –Charles Krauthammer

“‘E Pluribus Unum’ is no longer our national motto. These three words are: ‘Do For Me.’ As in: What will the government do for me?” –Michelle Malkin

“Politicians have immense power to do harm to the economy. But they have very little power to do good.” –Walter Williams

“Most change in America doesn’t come from politicians. It comes from people inventing things and creating. The telephone, the telegraph, the computer, all those things didn’t come from government. Our world is going to get better and better, as long as we keep the politicians from screwing it up.” –David Boaz

“Conservatism always has been and always will be a force to reckon with because it most closely approximates the reality of the human condition, based, as it is, on the cumulative judgment and experience of a people. It is the heir, not the apostate, to the accumulated wisdom, morality and faith of the people. … Our challenge is not to retreat to the comfort of self-congratulatory exile but to sweat and bleed — and be victorious — in the arena of public opinion.” –Tony Blankley

“Since our last meeting we have been through a disastrous election. It is easy for us to be discouraged, as pundits hail that election as a repudiation of our philosophy and even as a mandate of some kind or other. … Bitter as it is to accept the results of the November election, we should have reason for some optimism. …[I]t is possible we have been persuasive to a greater degree than we had ever realized. Few, if any, Democratic Party candidates in the last election ran as liberals. Listening to them I had the eerie feeling we were hearing reruns of [Barry] Goldwater speeches. I even thought I heard a few of my own.” –Ronald Reagan

“Perhaps the biggest mystery of all is why anyone would want more money and more power in the hands of the federal government, which is really the basis of Obama’s campaign.” –Burt Prelutsky

“Barack Obama’s staff pleaded for get-out-the-vote volunteers in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. The memo said not to come if they’re expecting a vacation, they should only come if they want to work. Look, if they wanted to work they wouldn’t be Democrats.” –Argus Hamilton

“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.” –Samuel Adams

“The choice this year at the top of the ballot is crucial. Don’t listen to the cynical pundits who tell you this election isn’t about the issues. Oh, yes, it is. In fact, it’s about more than the issues: It’s about the direction this country’s going to take over the next 4 years and beyond. It’s about the kind of economy we want, the kind of defense we want, the kind of values we want. The choice is yours. But, yes, my fellow Americans, there is a choice, a very, very important choice.” –Ronald Reagan

“I happen to know the person who found [the 2001 Obama redistribute the wealth audio]. It is an individual person, with no more resources than a desire to know everything that he or she can about who might be the next president of the United States and the most powerful man in the world. I know that this person does not have teams of highly paid professionals, does not work out of a corner office in a skyscraper in New York, does not have access to all of the subtle and hidden conduits of information … who possesses no network television stations, owns no satellite time, does not receive billions in advertising dollars, and has a staff of exactly one. I do not blame Barack Obama for believing in wealth distribution. That’s his right as an American. I do blame him for lying about what he believes. But his entire life has been applying for the next job at the expense of the current one. He’s at the end of the line now. I do, however, blame the press for allowing an individual citizen to do the work that they employ standing armies of so-called professionals for. I know they are capable of this kind of investigative journalism: It only took them a day or two to damage Sarah Palin with wild accusations about her baby’s paternity and less time than that to destroy a man who happened to be playing ball when the Messiah decided to roll up looking for a few more votes on the way to the inevitable coronation. We no longer have an independent, fair, investigative press. That is abundantly clear to everyone — even the press. It is just another of the facts that they refuse to report, because it does not suit them.” –columnist Bill Whittle

“It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. But it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest of errors, by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise.” —Alexander Hamilton

“The power to tax is the power to destroy.” —Chief Justice John Marshall

“Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.” —Calvin Coolidge

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.” —H. L. Mencken

“The United States of America—five percent of the world’s population—leads the world economically, militarily, scientifically, and culturally—and by a spectacular margin. Any one of these achievements, taken alone, would be cause for enormous pride. To dominate as we do in all four arenas has no historical precedent. That we have achieved so much in so many areas is due—due entirely—to the structure of our society as outlined in the Constitution of the United States.” —Bill Whittle

“Those who are receptive to Senator Barack Obama’s plan to increase taxes on ‘the rich’ seem not to understand that the issue is the nation’s loss of wealth. Today, wealth can leave the country when heavy taxes threaten it—instantly, in an age of electronic financial transfers—and create jobs and economic growth overseas, instead of at home.” —Thomas Sowell

“Obama says the Constitution charters ‘negative liberties.’ He wants government to do things to people, and he’s mad that the ‘flawed’ Constitution limits its role in our lives. He doesn’t like the idea of liberty, and wants to change it!” —Rush Limbaugh

Jay Leno: Just one week left to go until the election. To give you an idea of how long this whole thing has been going on, when John McCain started, he was just 47 years old. … Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama. This is bad news for John McCain, because at his age, he has enough colon problems. … Pundits say Colin Powell is the biggest political figure to endorse Barack Obama since Bill and Hillary. And the only one of those three who will actually vote for him. … After his big speech in North Carolina [Monday], Senator Joe Biden said he was experiencing a sore throat and lost his voice. Boy, the good news doesn’t stop for Barack Obama. Just one lucky break after another. … And Ralph Nader, God bless him, still out there campaigning. Ralph Nader said today he has set a record for the most campaign speeches given in one day. He gave 21 speeches in one day. Of course, we have to take his word for it, because there are no witnesses.

“Well, there’s something known as American conservatism, though it does not even call itself that. It’s been calling itself ‘voting Republican’ or ‘not liking the New Deal.’ But it is a very American approach to life, and it has to do with knowing that the government is not your master, that America is good, that freedom is good and must be defended, and communism is very, very bad.” —William F. Buckley Jr

“The most dangerous myth is the demagoguery that business can be made to pay a larger share, thus relieving the individual. Politicians preaching this are either deliberately dishonest, or economically illiterate, and either one should scare us. Business doesn’t pay taxes, and who better than business to make this message known? Only people pay taxes, and people pay as consumers every tax that is assessed against a business. Begin with the food and fiber raised in the farm, to the ore drilled in a mine, to the oil and gas from out of the ground, whatever it may be—through the processing, through the manufacturing, on out to the retailer’s license. If the tax cannot be included in the price of the product, no one along that line can stay in business.” —Ronald Reagan

“These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was… the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was… the Republican Party. Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout! What? It’s not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame? Now let’s follow the money… right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae. And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate’s campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing. If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was. But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an ‘adviser’ to the Obama campaign—because that campaign had sought his advice—you actually let Obama’s people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn’t listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign. You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican. If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.” —Orson Scott Card

“A little noticed provision in the $700 billion Paulson plan requires Uncle Sam to embrace a sort of mark-to-market accounting for the bank investments Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will be making with taxpayer funds. Federal budgeteers will have to regularly estimate the change in value of the taxpayers’ stakes and count the paper gain or loss in the annual deficit estimates. If the assets perform well, the next president will have more money to spend without enlarging the deficit. If they perform badly, just the opposite. With expectations that the deficit could be headed toward a psychologically shocking $1 trillion in the next year or so, a strong rally in bank stocks might even be the difference between a flood and a trickle of visible red ink. Then again, if the goal is truth-in-accounting, it would be nice to see some mark-to-market on the liability side too, including Social Security and Medicare. Right now, unlike a private business, the government is not obliged to record any charge in the annual budget to cover the unfunded future obligations of these programs.” —James Freeman

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin

“[W]e must choose from among our guardians those men who, upon examination, seem most of all to believe throughout their lives that they must eagerly pursue what is advantageous to the city and be wholly unwilling to do the opposite.” —Socrates

“People who put faith in government to solve national or even individual problems are headed for deep disappointment, if it hasn’t already arrived. Still, that doesn’t stop politicians from attempting to sell political snake oil to the gullible. No one ever lost money betting on the ignorance of the uninformed masses.” —Cal Thomas

“[B]y ‘redistributing wealth,’ as Obama wants the government to do, he’s actually reducing overall wealth in the economy by taking away capital from those who can invest it efficiently in direct job creation. And the real irony is that if Obama is elected and succeeds in raising taxes on the top 5 percent, he’s likely to collect less tax, not more, if history is a guide.” —Linda Chavez

“It was the Republican Party that demolished the shining city on the hill my father built. It was the Republican Party that was 100 percent responsible for the end of the Reagan Revolution…[T]he Republican Party abandoned the trail leading to that shining city on the hill to become itself a quasi-Left-wing organization which looks at the Democrats’ welfare programs and says ‘me too’.” —Michael Reagan

“In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate—look to his character.” —Noah Webster

“The power to determine the quantity of money… is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power.” —Milton Friedman

“What sets conservatives—and by extension the GOP—apart is that we have always encouraged vigorous debate and the civil discourse necessary for the continuation of this American experiment. It is the foundation of our republic and the catalyst to our best ideas. But we succeed in our intellectual pursuits only because they stand firmly on the solid rock of our morality, our spirituality and our admission of and submission to the God that grants our souls the right to breathe. The sinking sand of liberal dogma will never be a suitable substitute.” —Doug Patton

“The left subscribes to the French Revolution, whose guiding principles were ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.’ The right subscribes to the American formula, ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.’ The French/European notion of equality is not mentioned. The right rejects the French Revolution and does not hold Western Europe as a model. The left does. That alone makes right and left irreconcilable. The left envisions an egalitarian society. The right does not. The left values equality above other values because it yearns for an America in which all people have similar amounts of material possessions… The right values equality in opportunity and strongly believes that all people are created equal, but the right values liberty, a man-woman based family and other values above equality.” —Dennis Prager

“Consider the magnitude of these problems or the sheer, dumb size of the institutions. Another phrase of financial usage familiar everywhere now is ‘too big to fail.’ But if something is too big to fail, isn’t it… too big? Look in any direction and what you see are institutions that are Too Big. Too big to fully understand, and thus too big to manage efficiently. Faced with Godzilla-sized problems, logic flees: If they’re too big to fail, the solution is… make them bigger! The big, fat government we know about, with its $2.942 trillion annual outlays. The problem of unmanageable public bigness is also seen in state legislatures in a condition of permanent nonperformance, as in New York, California or Michigan. We become numb to these outsized and failing public institutions, which grind in circles while the pols purport concern about massive, forward-crawling monoliths like Medicare, Social Security or public pension debt. By contrast, the starkness and hourly reporting of the financial crisis has made the dilemma of size impossible to duck.” —Daniel Henninger

“The government is seeking to buy up shares in healthy, well-run small businesses all across America so it can get those businesses to behave as the government wants them to behave… But isn’t that how we go into this mess—with the government trying to get banks to make more loans? Just as one lie leads to another, imprudent government intervention in the free market leads to further imprudent government intervention in the free market. Each step of the way, we are told we have no choice but to do what the government wants us to do. The original transgression that led us to the current crisis was committed by elected officials in Washington who wanted to buy additional incumbency insurance for themselves by saying to voters: We will help you buy a house. They worked to accomplish this through legislation (such as the Community Reinvestment Act) that pressured banks to make riskier loans and through tax-exempt government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which started buying up riskier loans (so the original lenders did not have to carry the risk) and wrapping them into mortgage-backed securities (which mixed bad loans with good loans)… So we have gone from government pressuring banks to make riskier mortgages, to government-sponsored enterprises buying riskier loans from banks to facilitate even more risky lending, to government buying stakes in the banks themselves… What will be the next unprecedented measure government officials never thought would be necessary?” —Terence Jeffrey

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” —Thomas Jefferson

“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” —Milton Friedman

“Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others.” —Ayn Rand

“Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.” —Ludwig von Mises

“The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else.” —Frederic Bastiat

“How odd that all those boring lessons from our grandparents turn out to be true in the globalized, hip 21st century: Save your money. Don’t borrow what you can’t pay back. Look first at a man’s character, not his degrees. And if a promised return on an investment seems too good to be true, it probably is.” —Victor Davis Hanson

“Mr. Obama’s leadership during the [financial] crisis has consisted of standing out of the way and mouthing platitudes about the failings of the past eight years of Bush economics.” —Rich Lowry

“[Ronald] Reagan moved the country to the right. Reagan didn’t get Democrat votes by telling Democrats they’re going to be comfortable as Democrats in the Republican Party because we’re going to deemphasize conservatism. Reagan made several million Democrats like conservatism.” —Rush Limbaugh

“Logic has little to do with politics, especially in an election year, when winning tends to become the only goal. In the mounting urgency of a campaign, who’s got time or energy to waste making sense?” —Paul Greenberg

“The president went on to say: ‘Here’s what the American people need to know: that the United States government is acting; we will continue to act to resolve this crisis and restore stability to our markets.’ Which was Bush’s way of saying: ‘Hi, I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’ Run for the hills!” —Chuck Muth

“A town in upstate New York is being accused of being biased ‘cause they sent out absentee ballots that say ‘Barack Osama.’ Today they apologized and printed new ballots that say ‘Barack Hussein Osama’.” —Conan O’Brien

Jay Leno: The last debate will be [Wednesday] night. It’s being sponsored by Anheuser-Bush. I guess the last two debates were so boring, people need to get good and liquored up. … But the big story continues to be the economy. How many people remember when we had an economy? They said on the news today that the stock market is on a wild roller-coaster ride. Really? Does it feel like a roller coaster? Doesn’t it feel more like that stupid free-fall ride where you drop 500 feet and you vomit all over the place? … Former President Jimmy Carter blasted President Bush, blaming the financial crisis on him. Carter called this the worst financial crisis since the Carter administration. … The average price of a gallon of gas has had its biggest drop ever this week also. It’s now down to $3.30 a gallon. Remember $3.30 a gallon? That’s the price you used to get outraged about a year ago. … General Motors fell to its lowest level since 1950, not a good sign. In fact, in terms of carmakers, General Motors is now third behind Tonka and Hot Wheels.

“We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.” —George Washington

“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.” —Ronald Reagan

“What’s the difference between the right to free speech—which is enshrined in the Constitution—versus the ‘right’ to health care, which is not? Well, back in the day, we would simply say that a right has legal authority—it’s in the Constitution and therefore it’s a not just a right, it’s a birthright. So why shouldn’t we amend the Constitution to include the rights to health care, food, housing, education—all the rest? What’s the difference between the rights we have and the ‘rights’ Obama wants to give us? Simply this: Constitutional rights protect us from things: intimidation, illegal search and seizure, self-incrimination, and so on. The revolutionary idea of our Founding Fathers was that people had a God-given right to live as they saw fit. Our constitutional rights protect us from the power of government. But these new so-called ‘rights’ are about the government—who the Founders saw as the enemy—giving us things: food, health care, education… And when we have a right to be given stuff that previously we had to work for, then there is no reason—none—to go and work for them. The goody bag has no bottom, except bankruptcy and ruin.” —Bill Whittle

“I would appeal to… all Americans to acknowledge that the preservation of our liberties ultimately depends on the enormous dedication and self-sacrifice of our military men and women. I am very concerned about whether our professional class, buffed all shiny and bright by the elite universities, will ever have the will or stamina to defend this nation in a major crisis. As I’ve predicted for years, we’re heading down a path similar to that of the Roman empire—with a sophisticated, self-absorbed upper class enjoying a comfortable lifestyle whose security is maintained by a career military (increasingly foreign or mercenary as Rome declined). Soldiers must do or die by the good judgment or shallow caprice of a nation’s leaders, who are the ones who bear all moral responsibility in this matter.” —Camille Paglia

“Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self-definition—do you really know who he is and what he believes?” —Charles Krauthammer

“Obama could have allied himself with all sorts of other people. But, time and again, he allied himself with people who openly expressed their hatred of America. No amount of flags on his campaign platforms this election year can change that.” —Thomas Sowell

“Our opponent… is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect—imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country. This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America. We see America as a force of good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism.” —Sarah Palin

“Lots of other places—from Britain to Australia—took a hit in 1929 but, alas, they lacked an FDR to keep it going till the end of the Thirties. That’s why in other countries they refer to it as ‘the Depression,’ but only in the U.S. is it ‘Great’.” —Mark Steyn

“Votes are collared under democracy not by talking sense but by talking nonsense.” —H. L. Mencken

“Probably the most distinctive characteristic of the successful politician is selective cowardice.” —Richard Harris

“The short memories of the American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.” —Will Rogers

“Anybody that wants the Presidency so much that he’ll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.” —David Broder

“What do Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden have in common? They both have friends who bombed the Pentagon.” —Rush Limbaugh

“[Joe] Biden was glib and fluent and in command of the facts—if by ‘in command of the facts’ you mean ‘talks complete blithering balderdash and hogwash.”’ —Mark Steyn

Jay Leno: The [second presidential] debate took place in Nashville, Tennessee, which is perfect—the economy right now is kind of like a bad country song: “I lost my girl; I lost my house…” … The debate was held in “town-hall” style, which means instead of ignoring the moderator’s questions, the candidates could ignore the voters directly.

“Speak seldom, but to important subjects, except such as particularly relate to your constituents, and, in the former case, make yourself perfectly master of the subject.” —George Washington

“The [Wall Street] crisis came partly because so many households decided that it would be jolly fun to budget the way government does, hitching outlays to appetites. Beneath Americans’ perfunctory disapproval of government deficits lurks an inconvenient truth: They enjoy deficits, by which they are charged less than a dollar for a dollar’s worth of government. Conservatives participate in this, even though deficits fuel government’s growth by obscuring its cost. The people can emulate the government because credit has been democratized. Democratization of everything is supposedly an unquestionable good, but a blizzard of credit cards (1.5 billion of them, nine per cardholder), subsidized loans and cheap money has separated the pleasure of purchasing from the pain of paying. Furthermore, the entitlement mentality fostered by the welfare state includes a felt entitlement to a standard of living untethered from savings. Populism flatters the people, contrasting their virtue with the alleged vices of some minority…[T]oday, the villain is ‘Wall Street greed,’ which is contrasted with the supposed sobriety of ‘Main Street.’ When people on Main Street misbehave by, say, buying houses for more than they can afford to pay, they blame the wily knaves who made them do it.” —George Will

“A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?” —Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned, ‘The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.’ The freedom of individuals from compulsion or coercion never was, and is not now, the normal state of human affairs. The normal state for the ordinary person is tyranny, arbitrary control and abuse mainly by their own government. While imperfect in its execution, the founders of our nation sought to make an exception to this ugly part of mankind’s history. Unfortunately, at the urging of the American people, we are unwittingly in the process of returning to mankind’s normal state of affairs. Americans demand that Congress spend trillions of dollars on farm subsidies, business bailouts, education subsidies, Social Security, Medicare and prescription drugs and other elements of a welfare state. The problem is that Congress produces nothing. Whatever Congress wishes to give, it has to first take other people’s money. Thus, at the root of the welfare state is the immorality of intimidation, threats and coercion backed up with the threat of violence by the agents of the U.S. Congress. In order for Congress to do what some Americans deem as good, it must first do evil. It must do that which if done privately would mean a jail sentence; namely, take the property of one American to give to another… There is no question that if one were to ask whether we Americans are moving towards more liberty or more government control over our lives, the answer would unambiguously be the latter—more government control over our lives.” —Walter Williams

“Freedom is something that cannot be passed on in the blood stream, or genetically. And it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it, or it’s gone and gone for a long, long time. Already, many of us, particularly those in business and industry, there are too many who have switched rather than fight. And it’s time that particularly, some of our corporations learned, that when you get in bed with government, you’re going to get more than a good night’s sleep.” —Ronald Reagan

“The financial services sector is over-leveraged and too large. Winding this down will, indeed, impose painful costs. Congress is seeking to explicitly transfer these costs to taxpayers, who will underwrite a new government plan devised to correct the old government plans. Taxpayers are being called upon to make a significant sacrifice, with little evidence to suggest that the troubled markets will be settled. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the latest intervention will delay the required adjustments in the financial services sector. The $700 billion intervention is just the largest, latest in a series of failed bailouts with no guarantee that the desired outcome will even be achieved. As a Public Choice professor, I used to begin class each semester with Armey’s Axiom number one: ‘The market is rational and the government is dumb.’ Those quick to call for more regulation forget the power of markets, and refuse to acknowledge government culpability in the current mess. Time and again, governments the world over have attempted to outsmart the market and the current legislation is no exception. And time after time, markets respond, toppling the best-laid government plans as they move to correctly price the underlying assets in exchange.” —former House Republican Leader Dick Armey

“Liberalism, as an experiment against common sense, undermines every institution it touches, including financial ones. In the age of political correctness, the conservatism of the banking industry was bound to give way to mindless multiculturalism and Great Society babble. Tried-and-true lending principles were deemed illiberal and imprudent loans became a form of ‘progress.’ Whatever the area that falls under it—whether it is banking or education—liberalism’s regulatory regime consists of forcing people to adopt ideological goals which defy rationality: banks are told not to insist on such outmoded tests as good credit; schools are told not to insist on good test scores for admission. High standards across the culture have eroded under liberalism. Why not in banking too? Indeed, given the choice between economic decline and political correctness, liberals always choose the former. To preserve the kangaroo rat, they will cut jobs. To advance faddish global warming theory, they will undercut whole industries. Instead of bemoaning economic decline, they normally interpret it as a measure of enlightenment: that some worthy ideological goal, far more important than money, is slowing business down.” —George Neumayr